Red Sheep

Pastoral Supervision for Apprentices

Pastoral Supervision for Trainers

The Purpose of pilot is to:

  1. Assess the effectiveness and develop best practice for the pastoral supervision of ministry apprentices.
  2. Develop educational resources to introduce ministry apprentices to supervision and the value it brings to long-term ministry effectiveness.
  3. Establish the systems for MTS and Red Sheep to administer the partnership.

Outline of the pilot

  • Approximately 12 ministry apprentices from a variety of groups including:
    • 1st year apprentices
    • 2nd year apprentices
    • Different denominations, ministry areas and location
    • AFES and Church-based apprentices
    • Able to meet face to face and ZOOM
  • Each apprentice meets with a Pastoral supervisor 6 times in the year for 60 mins.
  • Red Sheep to provide supervisors of the same gender as the apprentice.
  • All Pastoral supervisors will receive supervision for their supervision.
  • All apprentices to complete online survey at the program end to evaluate the effectiveness of the program.
  • Ministry Wellness assessment completed by all 1st years going into 2nd years and then completed at years end to evaluate impact on ministry health.
  • Each supervisee needs to raise an additional $960 for the year of supervision. If this is going to be a significant impediment to participation please let us know.
  • Runs from February 2023 till December 2023.
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What is a Pastoral Supervisor?

There are lots of different definitions for pastoral supervision. Often these definitions have considerable overlap with other disciplines such as mentoring and coaching and to a lesser degree spiritual direction and counselling. This one was developed recently by the Sydney Anglican diocese.

“a regular, planned, and contracted safe space where a ministry worker brings an event or issue to a supervision session with a trained and approved pastoral supervisor. The issue is then discussed from person, theology, other person, and interactional viewpoints with the goal of being a formative, normative and restorative activity which promotes better ministerial practice and provides support for the ministry worker.”

Pastoral supervision is a relationship outside your ministry context that offers encouragement and support to persevere in the rigours of ministry life. The supervision relationship is characterised by trust, confidentiality, voluntary accountability, support and freedom to explore issues arising in your ministry.

Challenging pastoral situations, difficult ministry team relationships, personal struggles and sins,  ethical practice, life and work balance, self-care strategies, development of ministry skills and offloading of distressing incidents are examples of some of the issues that can be brought to supervision.

One of the metaphors used for Pastoral Supervision is the "three-legged stool" which represents the 3 major tasks of supervision:

  • The Formative task – an educative aspect which concerns the equipping of the supervisee with a greater knowledge of the issues they are facing in order to resource them for their work
  • The Restorative task – a supportive function which understands the challenges of the supervisee’s work, and provides a place for the ‘recharging’ of emotional and spiritual energy.
  • The Normative task – a quality control function which attends to issues such as boundaries and professional expectations.
 What are the benefit of Pastoral Supervision for Ministry Trainees?

The Formative task

  1. The supervision relationship provides a space to reflect on the apprentice/trainer relationship. It recognises the critical role that imitation (apprentice of trainer) plays in the ministry apprenticeship. It seeks to enhance that relationship by encouraging the supervisee to reflect on the example of their ministry trainer.
  2. It teaches the skill of reflective practice and self-awareness in ministry. The recent work by Kirsty Bucknell has shown these skills are particularly helpful in developing resilience and long term effectiveness in ministry.
  3. The supervision relationship provides an outside relationship to discern whether to pursue theological training and paid vocational ministry. This removes any personal bias a trainer or church leadership might have in encouraging the person to continue on a full time vocational ministry path.
  4. Through the use of helpful reflective questions the supervision relationship can equip the apprentice to make wise and helpful ministry decisions in the midst of complexity.

The Restorative Task

  1. Supervision provides another relationship in the apprentice’s life who can check in regularly with the supervisee on their ministry wellness and risk factors for burnout. The pastoral supervisor can then become a point of informal referral for medical and psychological help.
  2. It prevents the sole pastoral responsibility landing on one person during a critical time in the ministry apprentice’s development. This pastoral backup becomes even more critical when the trainer is going through a season of busyness and struggling to function well in leadership.

The Normative task

  1. It recognises the power dynamics of the trainer/apprentice relationship and creates a safe person outside the trainer/apprentice relationship to reflect on the relationship. Supervision becomes a place of encouragement to pursue a healthy trainer/apprentice relationship.
  2. It provides a space to reflect on ministry relationships and the discernment of relational boundaries with people we minister to.
  3. It provides a safe relationship which encourages honesty and helpful accountability.
Answers to common questions/concerns from trainers 

While we can see many benefits from supervision for trainees we have also heard some concerns from ministry trainers and churches. We think the main reason for these concerns is a lack of understanding of the role of a pastoral supervisor. Four concerns we have encountered are:

1. "Snooper"vision 

Trainers could feel like they need to be watched and checked up on to make sure they are doing a good enough job. This is one of the difficulties of the word "supervision" as it implies line management and oversight. But as defined above supervision is not there to check up on trainers. Supervisors are independent from both MTS and the church and unless it is an issue of mandatory reporting will not be reporting to anyone.

2. Drama triangles

The concern is that inserting a supervisor into the trainer/apprentice relationship could lead to the supervisor creating an unhelpful drama triangle if any sort of conflict occurs. i.e the supervisor plays the part of empathic listener (Hero) who cares for the apprentice (victim) unlike the busy trainer (villain) who seems less concerned with the apprentice.

While this is a potential danger if the supervisor is poorly trained. A trained supervisor is aware of this relational dynamic and intentionally seeks to break drama triangles, encouraging the apprentice to resolve conflict if it occurs with their trainer. The supervisor’s goal is to help the apprentice mature in their response to conflict and break out of the drama triangle.

3. Theological influence

The concern is that supervision might be the means of the apprentice being led down a different theological line by the supervisor. While supervision is theological i.e it is shaped by a biblical understanding of people and relationships and transformation etc. A pastoral supervisor never tries to shape or argue for theological positions but encourages the apprentice to work with their trainer in discussing matters of doctrine.

4. The cost

While we recognise an additional cost is not ideal we believe not providing this level of care would lead to greater expense. The cost of ministry burnout, relational breakdown due to an apprentice having a poor training experience we think is worth the extra cost.

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